


Roadworks just past Neptune, delays expected

by ncruuk



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Easter, F/F, No Angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-28
Updated: 2016-03-28
Packaged: 2018-05-29 17:26:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,523
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6385576
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ncruuk/pseuds/ncruuk
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Easter weekend is traditionally a time of long car journeys and traffic jams in roadworks.   Which was why Kate Stewart had planned to stay home with Osgood and garden.</p><p>And yet here she was, not in her garden and not eating chocolate.... Just another UNIT day.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Roadworks just past Neptune, delays expected

**Author's Note:**

  * For [darklioness82](https://archiveofourown.org/users/darklioness82/gifts).



> This is just a bit of seasonal amusement that hopefully entertains...

 

The first clue that indicated their visitors were, in fact, tangible and not a shared delusion or halluncination was when Osgood sneezed.  Loudly.  Seventeen times.

The second clue that indicated their visitors were, in fact, real and not a side effect of those rather 'interesting' mini-egg nests that had been obligingly left at the coffee point nearest Osgood's lab was that they were very noisy, but in a...cute way - nightmares were generally silent or with horrifying soundtracks.

The third clue that confirmed their visitors were definitely real and not in anyway a consequence of Kate's over-stimulated imagination was the arrival of what felt and sounded like every single police unit west of Shropshire and south of Scotland.  And none of them seemed inclined to believe that a woman could be in charge.  Until they saw that her boys with guns were bigger (both the boys and the guns) than their boys with guns.  And the Dogs were _never_ useful in her nightmares.

However, before she could start to work out where to begin with the sizeable group of large visitors who were clearly alien, evidently lost, probably scared and definitely not invited, there was the small matter of Osgood, who was still sneezing.

"Os?"

"Thirty-four."  Kate couldn't help but smile - if Osgood was still counting, then the world wasn't yet ending, although her faith in that particularly allergy medication probably just had.

"Visitors or sneezes?"  

Osgood sneezed.

"Thirty-five.," she said, repositioning her glasses for the thirty-third time.

"Ah, sneezes.  Do you want to sit this one out?"  Kate really didn't want to venture any closer to their visitors without Osgood (if only so her partner could share in the no doubt countless future retellings of this particular installment of UNIT's weird and wonderful 'just another day' at 'the office' stories) but equally, she wasn't sure Osgood would survive.

"No thank you."  Osgood had managed, between sneezes 4 and 11, to find her emergency tablets, and managed to dry-swallow them between sneezes 16 and 17.  Theorectically, they should be starting to take effect.  "I'll stop sneezing in a mo..." she sneezed, "...ment."  She glared at the end of her nose, as if trying to intimidate it into behaving.

"If you're sure," and smiling fondly at her partner, never dreaming to say out loud that she thought she was rather cute when she glared at her own nose like that, Kate turned back towards their visitors.

Striding out across the turf of the Millenium Stadium, suddenly grateful that the call had come in whilst she was allegedly 'off duty' and was therefore still in her gardening clothes when the helicopter had come to pick up her and Osgood, her boots making easy work of the churned up pitch, she attempted to attract someone's attention.

"Good afternoon,  lovely day for your visit."  It was actually, with the sun shining and little puffs of white cloud skipping across the sky.  "I'm Kate Stewart."

She stopped, on the 22 yard line Max informed her later, and waited to see if the nearest alien was turning towards her because she was about to be spoken to or attacked.  Fortunately, it appeared the alien was inclined to be talkative, rather than combative.

"Er, Ma'am?"

"Yes Osgood?"

"I think we should get one of the locals over to help."

"Help with what?"  Kate looked at Osgood, not disagreeing but struggling to see whatever it was that Osgood had spotted.

"Communication."

"But..." Kate stopped speaking when the aliens launched into animated conversation amongst themselves, with their voices blending into a not unpleasant 'hum' of chatter, accompanied by the gentle 'thumps' and shakes of the ground beneath her feet as they moved excitedly to talk to what she presumed were their friends.  "You've got to be kidding me..." she said, when her ear caught some semi-familiar words.

"Seems so," agreed Osgood, accepting Kate's nod as confirmation that she should radio of backup.  "Greyhound two to Dragon one..." Osgood waited for the local UNIT Commander to acknowledge her call.  "Could you send a fluent Welsh speaker to Greyhound one please?"

Despite his surprise, he duly obliged and soon the situation was resolved and the lost aliens were given assistance in resuming their journey.  


* * *

 

"That," declared Kate later, settling into the couch next to Osgood, who was methodically unwrapping their Easter Egg, "was an unusual day, even by our standards."

"Mmm...but I guess it makes sense, sort of."

"It does?"  Kate was not following Osgood's logic.

"I'd always wondered where the idea of the Easter Bunny came from."

"I thought it was Lutheran Germany?" asked Kate, not that interested in the history of the Easter Bunny and rather more interested in getting comfortable with Os...and the extra thick bit of the Easter Egg.

"Yes, but where did they get the idea from?"  Osgood put the now unwrapped half of the Easter Egg on the plate she had brought with her and reached forward to put the still foil wrapped half on the coffee table, a movement that brought much huffing from Kate.  "What?"

"I was comfortable and you moved..."

"Ah."  Osgood shifted back to how she was sitting before, enabling Kate to snuggle up against her once more.  "Better?"

"Mmm..." There was a brief interlude during which Kate elected to convey how much better she felt by shifting once more, this time into kissing range.  "Much..." Kate agreed, when they parted.

"The thick bit's by the top."  Osgood lifted the plate up from her lap and gently coaxed the chocolate egg shell to spin around so the narrower 'top' was pointing towards Kate.  "And no, I don't mind."  There were few 'innocent' pleasures left if you were as world-weary as working at UNIT for more than a decade could make you, and she was certainly not going to deprive her lover of one of hers, especially when she was rewarded with the genuine delight that such a 'treat' still generated in Kate: seeing Kate so relaxed, animated and free from the weights and worries that the world placed on her was one of Osgood's pleasures.

"Thank you..." Kate broke up the egg and took the pieces that contained the 'thick bit'.  After the first mouthful though, her thoughts had shifted again. "This morning?"

"Yes?"

"It really happened?"

"Yes."  Osgood thought for a moment, "if you'd imagined it, you'd have stopped picturing me sneezing after the first fifty."

"More like twenty, and you're right."  Kate ate her next piece of chocolate.  "So there really were 45 elephant sized Easter Bunnies at the Millennium Stadium this morning?"

"Yes.  They'd misread the signs for the bypass just past Neptune.  Apparently there is some space wind repairwork that was suspended for the migration season, but some of the signs were put out wrong."

"That was what they were talking about?"  All Kate had really remembered was the long and surprisingly lyrical conversation that the lead 'bunny' had conducted with the poor PC Jones who had been volunteered by Dragon One as both a fluent Welsh speaker and completely expendible in the event they were as hostile as they were fluffy.

"Yes.  Apparently this wasn't the first time it had happened either."  Osgood remembered the lengthy debrief she'd had to contribute to once PC Jones had recovered from his first (and probably last) experience as an alien negotiator.  "Always about this point in the Earth's orbit of the Sun, which explains why they've only ever experienced crash landings in Northern Europe..." Osgood ate some more chocolate before Kate, who had predictably wolfed hers down, could start eying it in a predatory manner. "...and the space winds require maintenance inspections every 250 years or so, which means there is a diversion needed for the Neptune bypass.  Based on this group's experiences and understanding, there's one or two crash landings on Earth every other inspection, because of the signs being wrong."

"And that's how we have the Easter Bunny?"

"Would appear so."  Osgood finished her chocolate and stretched forwards, managing to slide the plate onto the coffee table without displacing Kate who had succeeded in getting herself _very_ comfortable.  "Makes more sense than the legends on their own."

"Mmm..." Kate once more waited until Osgood had finished shuffling before having a final shuffle herself so that they were both _really_ comfortable, which was what part of extra long Bank Holiday weekends were all about, no matter how crazy your 'day job' got.

* * *

 

"Os?" Osgood frowned, wondering why Kate had interrupted a rather nice kiss to start talking.

"Hmm?"

"Remember not to tell your nieces the truth about the Easter Bunny..."

"But..."

"At least, not until they're old enough to understand they're to only talk about the 'truth' with their Grandfather and us.  We do not want a repeat of the reindeer situation...."

"Good point."  And with that, Osgood sought to resume what they'd been previously involved with as, now she thought about it, her favourite sort of Easter chocolate couldn't be brought by the Easter Bunny, alien or otherwise, but then she'd be rather cross if anyone else in the Universe knew how to get chocolate-flavoured kisses from Kate....

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Happy Easter to you!  
> Hope the Easter Bunny brought you the right sort of chocolate!  
> Thanks for reading....


End file.
